


Like A Storm

by Barkour



Category: Monster High
Genre: During Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Pharaoh didn't tell her on that roof was that the first time he listened to a Catty Noir single, his heart beat to match her voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Boo York, Boo York, hobvs.

Pharaoh, smiling, narrow cheeks rounded, caught the branch of a utility pole and used it to spin himself near to her.

"Can I tell you something?"

Catty, seated on the length of a flag pole with her legs swinging before her and her tail behind her, smiled too. She tipped her head. The hair she'd left unbound swept along her shoulder, her arm. Pharaoh's throat worked.

"Don't tell me," she said, "you're really royalty."

He laughed and caught another utility pole. The spines of its arm masked him, like the leaves of a summer tree. Fine shadows marked his brown face. His eyes showed pale, though a shadow crossed them too. 

Catty's heart stickered. She brushed at that loose hair, tickling at her arm.

"Not that," he said. His fingers fitted to the spines. He emerged from beneath. His chin was low, his eyes lashed. "I, uh."

She held her hand to him. He took it as he came to crouch on the roof's edge. His fingers were long and smooth. His palm, too. 

Catty studied him. Her smile wryed. 

"You're a fan." 

Pharaoh dropped her hand and rocked back on his heels. His hands settled to his knees.

"Ahhh, how'd you know?"

"It's not the first time I've seen someone look at me like that," she said. She gripped the pole to either side of her legs. The metal, so high, was cool on her palms. 

"Sorry," Pharaoh said. His thumb passed along a crease in his harem pants. "I didn't want to embarrass you." He pulled his mouth to the side; his eyebrows arched. "Or me. To be honest."

Catty kicked her legs and leaned toward him.

"So, what you're telling me is... You planned that subway performance. You've been following me!" She flicked a claw along his chin.

Pharaoh made to sweep her finger away, but their hands touched again, and they stayed, and Catty felt the heat in her throat as he met her eyes. A sweet humor softened the angle of his eyes.

"You caught me," said Pharaoh. "I'm a mega creeper. You should probably just push me off the roof."

"As if you wouldn't land on your feet."

"Hey," he said, mouth a deep curve, "you're the cat."

Catty laughed, and the light, lingering touching of their hands changed. She wound her fingers with his.

"I'm just teasing," she said.

"Kinda figured that out," he said.

The edge of her thumb claw brushed his small finger. She looked to their wrists, her black inside to his brown inside. The tendons in his wrist showed more clearly.

"A lot of people don't think I'm the kind of girl who does that."

"What," said Pharaoh, "teases strange boys on rooftops?"

"Who jokes!" She laughed again though, and Pharaoh grinned. She rolled her lips in. "They don't ... think of Catty Noir as a ghoul. But as this sort of stage ghost. Like I'm only real to them when I'm dressed up on stage and singing."

His fingers curled and uncurled, so the tips swept minutely across her knuckles.

"That's why you left."

"It's part of why I left."

Pharaoh thought a moment. They looked together at the line of the sun, nearly below the horizon. A bleeding shadow stuck to the curve of the ocean. When he spoke, her ears twitched, turning a slight angle to catch his voice clearly.

Slowly he said, "You have to put some of yourself in your music. That's how it's real."

"Like you do."

"I'm just a street artist," he said, "not like you. My family doesn't even like that kind of music. You know. Rap and hip hop. Pop."

"My music."

He shrugged his free hand. 

"So you listened to my albums in secret," she said, amused. Pleased, too, and how odd that it should be so. But he was real, she thought. His rapping had been real, and the hand he'd offered her to lead her from the crowd.

"Maybe that's a little weird."

"But sweet, too."

They smiled at each other. His thumb traced the side of her hand. Her claws brushed the back of his hand. The air was cold between them, the wind unkind, traffic a shouting thing some ten stories beneath them. But how warm was his hand, wrapped with her own, and the line of his lip when he smiled at her again.

"I hope Catty Noir met your expectations," she said, another jest.

"She did," said Pharaoh. He stretched up some to slink from the roof to sit beside her on the flag pole. Their hands twisted between them. "But I like Catty moire."

She laughed helplessly at this.

"Hey, don't tease," Pharaoh said, "I'm an artiste."

"An artist, he says, an artist and a poet," she shot back, "but rhyming naturally, he doesn't know it."

"What can I say? Testing boundaries. You wanna change things up? Don't say please."

Their arms brushed. Their shoulders matched. 

"Oh, you talk a big game," she said, "but you broke the frame, changed your name--"

"Doing something like that, man, I got to be insane," said Pharaoh, and Catty leaned forward and kissed him.

His lips were soft. His breath, warm like the touch of his fingers. A startled exhale touched her cheek. Catty withdrew and found him looking at her with eyes wide and lips turned out.

"I," he said. "Uh."

Catty swallowed. She tried a smile. "Cat got your tongue?"

His lips twitched. A smile, called to answer. It unfolded, radiant. An eye crinkled; his wonder moved lopsidedly.

"Not yet?" he ventured.

Catty, leaning forward again, instead stood and stepped over him to the roof's edge. 

"Why don't you show me some more of your music?" She raised a brow at him. "That seems fair. Since you've heard all of mine."

"Not all of it," said Pharaoh. "I'm still waiting for that next album." 

He took her hand, stretched to him. How easily their fingers fit together. As he stood, her hair brushed his face. It parted for him. They stood before each other, and Catty said, "Well? Prince of Boo York? What are we doing next?"

"You ever seen the Statue of Li-boo-rty?"

"No." Her smile curled, sleek. "But I think I'm about to."

"Then how about this time," he said, their hands together at his chest as he stepped shyly nearer, "you follow my lead?"

"How about," said Catty.

Mischief rekindled in him, grinning as it did so, Pharaoh danced two steps backwards and drew her with him. He led her from this roof to another, across the city, through the sky, their hands joined; and the city sang around them, and her heart beat in time with this. This was music. She knew it. She felt it. 

Pharaoh shouted, "Keep up!" and Catty said, "Oh, don't worry, pretty boo, I'm already ahead of you," and then she pulled Pharaoh with her. 

The sun set. His smile lit. The comet glimmered, in the far distance of the dark night. The comet sang, too. Pharaoh sang, too.

Catty rose to meet the challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> I NEEDED KISSING so I decided to add a kiss to Catty and Pharaoh's rooftop adventures. Hooray!


End file.
